Archive: yemen

17th February 2024
By: Brian Whitaker
Publishing an independent newspaper is a hazardous business in countries where there is no tradition of a free press and where the authorities are not accustomed to having their actions questioned in print. Founded in 1991, the Yemen Times broke new ground in Yemeni journalism and won… Read more
1st December 2023
  At the height of the AIDS epidemic millions of people, especially in the world’s poorest countries, faced illness and death without access to proper treatment — and desperation opened the door for charlatans raising false hopes with quack cures. Among them was Abd al-Majeed al-Zindani, one of… Read more
11th July 2022
There’s a verse in the Qur’an that cautions Muslims against spreading false news and urges them to check the facts first with people of “sound judgment”. It was good advice in the time of the Prophet Muhammad and it’s good advice now in the age of social media. But is there more to the verse than… Read more
29th June 2022
By: Brian Whitaker
As British troops pulled out of Aden in 1967 the band of the Royal Marines struck up a tune to send them on their way – not Rule Britannia or Land of Hope and Glory but a Cockney song, Fings Ain't Wot They Used To Be. It was an ironic choice but, in the circumstances, probably the right one. "Fings… Read more
7th April 2022
After months of apparent deadlock, the last few days have brought tentative signs of a shift in Yemen's seven-year conflict.  On Friday Hans Grundberg, the UN's special envoy, announced that the protagonists had agreed to a two-month ceasefire. The truce, which came into force on Saturday, was… Read more
30th November 2021
A Yemeni journalist has become the latest victim of Saudi Arabia's laws against religious disbelief. Thirty-year-old Ali Muhsin Abu Lahoum worked in Sana'a for the Yemen Times before moving to Saudi Arabia in 2015 and taking up a job with a TV station. More recently he is said to have been… Read more
17th February 2021
By: Brian Whitaker
The Yemeni city of Marib lies 120 km to the east of the capital, Sana'a, with mountainous territory in between. It was from Marib, in the early stages of the six-year war, that pro-government forces hoped to launch an assault against the Houthi rebels who had seized Sana'a. Since then, though, the… Read more
15th February 2021
The US State Department confirmed on Friday that it is revoking a last-minute decision by the Trump administration to designate Yemen's Houthi movement as a terrorist organisation. The issue is not whether the Houthis deserve to be designated – their atrocities are well known – but Trump's action… Read more
28th January 2021
Secretary of State Blinken: "It’s vitally important that we do everything we can to get humanitarian assistance to the people of Yemen"  When Antony Blinken, the newly-appointed US Secretary of State, gave his first press briefing on Wednesday the first topic to come up was the war in Yemen. It's… Read more
1st January 2021
The attack on Aden airport in war-torn Yemen which killed at least 25 people and injured more than 100 on Wednesday appears to have had a political purpose rather than a military one. Crowds had gathered to welcome a plane carrying ministers in one of the country's two rival governments. Minutes… Read more